Our True Colors
by Enigma2Me
Summary: Sonic makes an unexpected stop at Tails' shack in the Mystic Ruins, and through his usual brand of recklessness manages to rope Tails into going to a space amusement park several days before the grand opening. But what they encounter there could very well change everything they know about each other...
1. The Trouble Begins

Chapter 1: The Trouble Begins

There are three things in the world Tails wished would happen less.

The first is to have a hyper, blue hedgehog barrel into his workshop at top speed.

The second is to have said hedgehog barrel into said workshop while many breakable objects were still out.

The third is to have said hedgehog barrel into said workshop while he was in the room to see said breakable objects be destroyed.

CRASH!

Sadly, it happens anyways.

**"**SONIC!**"** the fox yelled in exasperation as the door blasted open, knocking everything within range off the shelves and onto the floor. The named hedgehog looked around, and could only grin sheepishly at the mess he had made.

"Heh heh...whoops. Didn't mean to do that," Sonic apologized, crouching down to attempt to pick up the various fragments. "But you really gotta put this stuff further apart, Tails. This place feels more like a closet than a workshop!"

"Well this **closet** was meant for people to come in and out of **slowly**_,_ Sonic," Tails said, rolling his eyes in annoyance as he bent down to help, using his two namesakes to speed up the process, "and besides, the closer and more organized they are, the easier it is to find and reach for them-"

"Least until you knock down half of 'em when you try to get one piece," Sonic quipped, earning him a deadpan stare from the yellow fox.

"Oh ha-ha. At least I don't feel the need to be running around at the speed of sound all the time," Tails responded dryly as he placed the last of the fragments onto a nearby desk. "Speaking of running, why were you in such a hurry Sonic? At least you usually remember to knock before you break the door down."

Sonic stared blankly for a second before his eyes lit up.

"Oh yeah! I was passing by that old part of Station Square where I busted up Chaos, and I found this flyer for an amusement park that's having the grand opening in a few days!" Sonic exclaimed.

Tails raised a brow, somewhat amused and underwhelmed by this announcement.

"That's what's got you so excited? I never thought you'd want to go to those places, especially after that one time when you and Knu-"

"**THAT. NEVER. HAPPENED." **Sonic emphasized, a strange look flickering on his face for a second.

"Okay, Okay!" Tails said, put off by his friend's harsh response. "But seriously, what makes this amusement park so special?"

Sonic poised himself as if making a big announcement in front of the whole world.

"Two words Tails: Space. Elevator."

Tails blinked as the words set in.

"Space elevator? I never saw any space elevator around here. You sure the flyer wasn't pulling your leg?" Tails said, furrowing his brows together.

Sonic stared at him like he was about to grow a second head.

"Dude, have you been sleepwalking whenever you go out? The elevator's right outside Station Square!" Sonic said as he jabbed his thumb behind him, presumably towards the aforementioned city. "They've even got the elevator car up and running!"

Tails looked quite surprised…and a tad embarrassed. He had been so fixated on streamlining the Tornado to more closely resemble the original, especially after a number of rather... critical fans of Sonic had said that it looked like a bath toy, that he simply hadn't paid as much attention to his surroundings. He didn't mean to block things out; it just sort of happened when he was too fixated on something.

"Okay, maybe I haven't really been paying attention to things around me," Tails began, wondering where all of this was going. "But what exactly do you plan to do about it? The park doesn't open for the next few days, and I'm not going to be hanging around there for that long."

He suddenly noted that Sonic had gotten what could be described as a "shit-eating" grin.

"Sonic…what did you do?" Tails asked, wary.

"Well... I **was** checking out the elevator, and **may** have happened to see the keys for the elevator car…" Sonic said slowly, a sense of smugness notable in his tone of voice as he brought out a pair of keys he had been hiding behind his back.

"SONIC! You stole the keys? Do you have any idea how much trouble you'll get into once they find out?" Tails shouted, his eyes bulging out at his friend's foolishness.

"No prob, Tails! I got a good reason to take the keys-"

"What reason could you possibly have to take someone else's things? Even assuming you don't get in trouble for this, I doubt the owner is going to be too happy when a random hedgehog shows up at the park to cause havoc-" Tails' rant was cut off by a gloved hand covering his mouth.

"Tails, chill already!" Sonic said, waiting for his friend to cool down before finally taking his hand off Tails' mouth. "I took the keys **because** of who runs the park!"

Tails felt his anger change into confusion at the hedgehog's words.

"Huh? What do you mean?" He asked, feeling left out of the loop.

"It'll be easier for me to just show ya," Sonic responded. With that stated, he opened the door and slowly went into a jog, picking up speed as he went.

"But why can't you tell me **now**, Sonic?" Tails tried to ask, but by this point Sonic had already put a fair distance between himself and the shop. "WHAT'S SO IMPORTANT ABOUT THE OWNER?" He hollered.

"JUST GO TO THE MEADOW! I'LL MEETCHA THERE!" Sonic shouted back as he sped off.

Tails could only blink at the dust cloud that followed after Sonic, and then sighed in annoyance.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?"

End of Chapter 1

**Enigma2Me: In case you haven't guessed already, this story is based on Sonic Colors, a game that I have had mixed feelings for in terms of the story. Heavy deviations will occur in the story, although how much depends on what exactly I am going for. Also note that I am a very edit-happy person. What you see right now might undergo minor changes as I go along, or if I notice some errors.**


	2. Up for a Surprise

Chapter 2: Up for a Surprise

"Took ya long enough to get here! I thought I'd have to start the party without ya!" Sonic teased as his flying friend finally caught up to him atop the hilly meadow, carefully coming down for a landing.

"Well, I was debating whether to come along or to call the authorities to keep you out of trouble," Tails said, double-checking to make sure his Miles Electric pack was secured. "But you'd just give them allergies from leaving them in your dust, so I figured I'd better come along for damage control."

Sonic feigned a look of hurt.

"Aww, that hurts. You make it sound like I'm not housebroken or something."

"Well considering the number of times you **have** broken my house, all the cities with your footprints splattered all over the buildings, the broken glass from 'BOOSHING' through them…" Tails began, counting off on his fingers for each of the named grievances Sonic (and by extension anyone associated with Sonic) had been bombarded with over the years.

"Okay okay, ya got me there," Sonic said, looking somewhat flustered, "Let's just get this show on the road."

He then began to smirk, casually jabbing his thumb behind him.

"Or should I say, **UP** the road?"

Taking a look behind his friend, Tails' eyes widened at the sight before him. At the foot of the hill near a plain of grass, was a simple, though strangely elegantly designed elevator car shaped like a snail, its rotating cockpit turned so that it was level with the ground. But what really caught Tails' eye was what the car was attached to; a towering tube soaring high into the sky, the pulses of energy racing through the power lines on the side of the tube like a speeding bullet. Squinting his eyes, as he looked further up, Tails could make out what appeared to be 6 shining stars, stars that were most certainly not there before.

"Hey! We heading up yet, or do ya need more time to gawk?" a voice called out, snapping Tails out of his focused state. Sonic had already gotten to the elevator car and was waiting for him, tapping his foot expectantly. "I'm WAAAIITING!"

Tails could only roll his eyes as he ran towards the elevator car. The door shut behind him and Sonic as the car began to slowly climb upwards toward the park.

The ride for the most part was pretty uneventful, and while the car had eventually picked up to a reasonably fast pace, Sonic couldn't help but start fidgeting and complaining about how slow the car moved and how he would have covered the entire length of the tube in a fraction of the time. Tails had just nodded and said his "uh-huhs" and "I knows" like usual, as he had grown far too used to Sonic complaining about "slow" vehicles to really care as much. Before long however, Tails found himself becoming restless, as the question he wanted an answer to since he left his workshop quickly resurfaced.

"So…Sonic?"

Sonic snapped out of his current attempt to explain why he was still faster than Shadow, having lost interest in the elevator car some time ago.

"Yeah?"

You never told me why exactly it's so important to come to this particular park, besides the elevator, and I still don't know why the owner is so imp-"

Tails was cut off by a sudden "ping!" as the announcement system sprang to life above their heads, and the screen in the front of the cockpit fizzled for a sec. Then as the static died down, a gruff voice came out of the speakers.

"Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3. Is this thing on…?"

**A very familiar voice.**

A tinny, robotic voice dryly responded, its voice seeming to come from further away. "Well I don't know Doctor. The plugged microphone and the green light would confirm that it is in fact on."

"Oh shut up, you metal bowling ball! That was a rhetorical question!"

"No. Way." Was all Tails could say.

The screen finally stabilized, with the speaker in front of the camera for all in the cockpit to see. A large rotund man wearing a red jacket with white lines and yellow bars appeared; his bald head appearing comically small compared to the rest of him, and probably would have not been all that interesting if not for the goggles and a ridiculously large nose with brown mustache hair flaring out like two blasted ends of exploded firecrackers. His eyes, despite being hidden behind a pair of round glasses, seemed to bear a feeling of intense glee that closely matched the grin he sported at the moment. He puffed up, composing himself to his unseen audience.

"GREETINGS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS, AND ANNOYING ANTHROPOMORPHIC ANIMALS ALIKE! WELCOME TO EGGMAN'S INCREDIBLE INTERSTELLAR AMUSEMENT PARK! STARRING YOURS TRULY AS YOUR GRACIOUS HOST!"

As Eggman continued to ramble on with "This recording is designed to educate you on the proper procedures to approaching your amusement in this park-" Tails had turned towards his blue friend, who was now watching the shocked look on his face with amusement.

"Sonic…I thought you said Dark Gaia finished him off ages ago!"

Sonic simply shrugged.

"Honestly, I was just as surprised as you, little buddy-"

_"Little buddy?"_ Tails privately frowned. _"He hasn't called me that since the Death Egg incident all those years ago."_

"-but this is Eggman we're talking about; guy bounces back like a rubber ball no matter what ya do," Sonic continued, not noticing his friend's distracted state.

He then gave a cheeky grin, his eyes glinting with a fire that he hadn't had for quite some time.

"Egghead **was **nice enough to invite us, so I figured we should find out what he's **really** up to, and crack his plan wide open!"

End of Chapter 2

**Enigma2Me: So yeah, you might have noticed some minor changes in terms of what kind of formatting I will use for bits of dialogue and stuff. Bold is for emphasis/maybe sorta sarcasm, Italics is for thoughts, and I haven't figured out what I want to do with underlines yet. You also might have noted that these chapters tends to so far only be about 1000 words or so, including this Author's Note. Well that won't always be the case, but it is right now since I am still getting into the tempo of actually writing chapters, so it will probably start fluctuating later on depending on how things turn out.**


	3. Eggman's Remorse?

Chapter 3: Eggman's Remorse?

If Sonic's announcement was intended to gain anything, total silence sans Eggman's rambling about "things you shouldn't complain about while enjoying this park" was not what he expected. Frowning, Sonic finally noticed that his friend was not really paying all that much attention, the fox's brow creased together in thought.

"Uh…Tails? Earth to Tails!" Sonic said, snapping his fingers in Tails' face. Tails finally seemed to notice and was immediately jarred out of his thoughts.

"Huh wha-? Oh, sorry, Sonic; I just sort of spaced out…"

"Yeah, I kinda figured," Sonic replied, mildly annoyed to have been completely ignored. "Didja even hear anything I just said?"

"Um…not really…" Tails said sheepishly.

Resisting the urge to facepalm in annoyance, Sonic attempted to respond when the recording of Eggman decided to interrupt with a rather unexpected announcement.

"Now that I've covered all of the necessary procedures for maximum enjoyment of this amusement park, I'd like to dedicate this next part to the people of the world, as well as my old nemesis, Sonic."

"Oh this oughta be good for a laugh," Sonic said dryly as he and Tails turned their attention to the monitor.

"For those of you who haven't been living under a rock, I have spent much of my life aiming for world conquest, with the intention remaking the world in my glorious image, which I assure you is much improved over the likes of the military organization GUN, or the various sycophantic bureaucrats and power-hungry nutcases at the helm of our world's governments. After all, I AM the greatest scientific genius in the world!" Eggman boasted.

"Indeed Doctor!" a red domed head appeared in front of the screen, its blue eyes glowing intensely. "Your inventions are most ingenious in the way their flaws are incredibly obvious, the explosive qualities are magnificent, and they only have an insignificant chance of ki-"

"**Yes thank you Orbot, now please shut up!"** Eggman hastily responded, shoving the small robot aside. He then quickly readjusted his glasses as he tried to get back on track.

"Ahem! Anyways, as I was saying, I have made many attempts at world domination with…varying degrees of success."

"Well those varying degrees of success might have been more absolute if you had not continually let your ego-"

"CAN'T YOU KEEP YOUR METAL TRAP SHUT FOR A SECOND? I'M TRYING TO MAKE A SPEECH HERE!" Eggman yelled towards Orbot off-camera.

"Well I was merely trying to assist you, Doctor. That **is** what you programmed me to do after all." Orbot stated flatly.

"Then stop helping me for the next 5 minutes and let me finish!"

"…Very well then Doctor. 5 minutes it is."

"Thank you." Eggman turned back to the camera, his face noticeably redder. "**Anyways**, what I'm trying to say is that after my most recent failure, I took some time to carefully study the reason as to why I had been suffering such a losing streak for so long. And based on my studies, I can only come to the conclusion…"

"That you're a one trick pony and a terrible villain who keeps getting blown up by the monsters you can't control," Sonic piped up cheerfully.

"…that everything I have been doing up till recently was a terrible mistake."

The awkward silence that followed was deafening.

"…Wait, WHAT?" Sonic finally blurted out.

Now Eggman looked a little awkward, although considering what he had just said, that wasn't too surprising.

"Yes, I believe that trying to rule the world was nothing more than a terrible mistake and one that I have deliberately blinded myself to for the longest time. What should have been a glorious crusade to create a better world instead resulted in my downward spiral into nothing more than a Saturday morning cartoon villain."

Eggman took a deep breath, his face stuck between a weird mishmash of awkwardness and anger.

"And thus, this park is my apology towards the people of Earth…and to my pesky nemesis Sonic, for all the years of pain, irritation, and overall difficulty I have created in your lives. I know that many of you will likely never forgive me for my transgressions, but I can assure you that I will work for the rest of my lifespan to prove to you that I have changed. Thank you for listening, and enjoy your stay at Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park."

Eggman then turned to the side, his face a look of annoyance.

"Although if any of those idiots try to make me look like a fool, they can form a line in front of my Egg Firing Squad and get a load of-"

He then seemed to realize that the camera was still rolling.

"Um, please pretend you didn't hear any of that! Orbot, why didn't you tell me the camera still had some time left?"

"Well you told me to keep quiet for 5 minutes, and thus I am. It is currently 2 minutes and 7 seconds until that time limit is fin-"

"**GRAAAH!**" Eggman roared as he leaped off-screen towards Orbot, conveniently just as the camera's timer finally ran out.

End of Chapter 3

**EDITED by ****Enigma2Me****: I've been recently looking back at my work, and I think this chapter needed a rewrite. It just felt off to me in retrospect, and when I tried to figure out what to write for Chapter 4, I found it very difficult to come up with plausible interaction between Sonic and Tails as a result of this chapter's problems. Hence what you see right now.**


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